


Gin, Tonic and Serotonin

by celestiicaa



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Anti-Depressants, Anxiety Disorders and other drugs, Baby Sister Emma Chase, Chase and Cameron are divorced, Chase and Foreman are friends, Chase has/had a family, Chase needs therapy, Chase’s jokes might be worse than House’s, Eating Disorders, F/M, Foreman is the mum Chase has always needed, Gen, House's jokes suck, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, More of a "what if", Original Character - Freeform, Original Character also has issues, Potentially explicit in later chapters, Seriously should Chase and Foreman get matching bff bracelets, Slight Crack if you squint, Some OOC, The Flame Cane - Freeform, non-canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:31:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16403111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celestiicaa/pseuds/celestiicaa
Summary: Robert Chase deals with the aftermath of the separation, resurgence and divorce of/from Allison Cameron.Takes place in the imaginary space between his divorce and House's eventual break-up with Cuddy. Between his shameless womanizing and inevitable rebuilding of his life post-Cameron, Chase realizes he's been living with anxiety for some time but goes through some curious attempts at resolving his issues himself.It never hurts to get by with a little help from your friends.I don't own House MD or any of it's characters with the exception of my own original characters.





	1. Juniper

1  
  
Thunder.  
  
Chase's green eyes snapped open at the sound of it; at the nearness it promised as it's force shook the windows of his bedroom and the lightning that preceded it bathed everything in white.  
  
He glanced over at his alarm clock, glimpsing that it was 2:13AM and sighed, completely exasperated. He should really get some blinds up. Maybe invest in a white noise machine while he was at it. He'd been experiencing some sort of insomnia; something he blamed on too many sleepless nights being at the beck and call of his employer's brilliant madness and too many tests run on patients dying from some mystery disease.  
  
Certainly not because of his wife. Ex-wife.  
  
They'd been separated for nearly a year and divorced for less of that time, but like muscle memory, he couldn't stop thinking of Allison in the past tense, as if the happier memories of her would at all triumph over their current reality. He really hadn't the faintest idea of where she was now or what she was doing; if she was still practicing medicine, or if she even thought of him, especially on nights like these, when he awoke thinking he was still in the apartment they'd tried to make a home of.  
  
He had had to move, of course.   
  
The day Allison walked out on him, he wasn't able to sleep there for weeks until he'd finally decided to search for a new place, hoping the shift in his surroundings would exorcise him of her memory. Weekend getaways and waking up in someone else's bed had stopped working for him. He'd sold as much of the furnishings they'd bought together on craigslist as he could get rid of, and abandoned the rest to the curb.   
  
Now he lived on the opposite side of town, on a busier street that bloomed to life after the sun went down with pubs and restaurants; voices and music a melody he usually welcomed on those nights when he'd actually make it home, to his boxed belongings and empty fridge. He'd drop his bag off on the floor by the front door on those nights, only to turn back around without locking up behind him to cross the street and have a whiskey or two at Juniper's Pub.  
  
On random nights when he wasn't feeling totally abominable, Foreman would be courteous enough to accept his invitation to join him.  
  
They'd toss a few back, kill some time, shoot some pool––then they'd be back at Princeton-Plainsboro in the morning, pretending they weren't both dying from their noxious hangover brought on by a pissing contest about who could last longer without getting completely pissed.   
  
It was all going well, or at least, as well as life for Chase could currently go, given the tumultuous circumstances. He really didn't think anything was any more amiss than he was already aware of until four days ago, Monday, when Foreman dropped by to grab dinner and drinks. He supposed the guy was paying him a kindness and keeping him company; his divorce had been finalized for months but he'd taken to partying and one-night stands like a man possessed and depraved. Something low-key like dinner and a few beers with Foreman of all people was utterly wholesome in comparison.  
  
The neurologist had followed him up his five story walk-up to his flat on the third floor, hoping to drop off his briefcase and coat before their dinner at the Japanese restaurant a few blocks over. But he'd stopped mid-sentence upon Chase flicking the overhead light on. It didn't take him long to follow his line of sight, to the sparse furniture he kept (a dining table and bookcase in the adjoining living and dining room areas) and a few boxes still taped shut. There was a framed poster of 'An American Werewolf in London' leaning against the wall nearest to him with a sack of dirty laundry beside it.  
  
"... _Okay_ , how long has it been since you moved in?" Foreman asked tepidly, doing his best and failing extraordinarily at trying not to sound too judgmental as he eyed the bag of used gym clothes warily. He hadn’t seen the Aussie’s place prior and deduced it was for good reason.  
  
Chase appeared sheepish for a moment but averted his gaze all the same, "It hasn't been that long," He swung his keys on his index finger and simpered uncomfortably. "'Takes time to sort through, you know, everything." He gave the room a casual once-over, the open-floor space pathetically underutilized. It looked like he was squatting, with his junk and lack of furniture.  
  
"Chase, it's been three months, man. Three!" He didn't try to mask his astonishment, "Look, I know this can't be..." He struggled to articulate the right word for the situation, "...Particularly easy and House has us working around the clock most of the time but we've had days off. I'm not trying to sound like your mother but maybe it's time to actually move in."  
  
Right then. Right there.  
  
Foreman had shrugged his coat off and rolled his sleeves up before beginning to unpack Chase's things for him––with him––for hours. They ordered sushi and found a bottle of scotch in one of the boxes that held some of his older books. Completely underhanded and unplanned, the pair spent the night organizing and rearranging what was left of the surgeon's life. At least, his life pre-Cameron.  
  
Chase wasn't sure of when Foreman had produced his laptop and begun asking his opinion on colors for a set of couches, but before he'd departed, a cab waiting downstairs since he'd had one too many, the Aussie was expecting a few deliveries by the end of the week. He nearly thought them to be friends––if he hadn't considered him one before, he sensed an odd certainty now, as if their bond had transmuted. They went from competitors to colleagues that still competed; contesting and building and deconstructing each other's theories, to colleagues that got drunk together when their team lost a patient. Then, occasional drinks came not only in times of loss, but in times of joy and celebration. There had been plenty of nights when Foreman third-wheeled to join him and Allison for nightcaps; the neurologist had taken part in birthdays and family parties, exchanged gifts on Christmas, and yet it wasn't until he'd walked out that door on Monday night that Chase suddenly realized that their work relationship had duplicitously become a surprisingly personal friendship he was grateful to have.  
  
So, when Chase called him up at 2:27AM because he couldn't go back to sleep, he was taken aback by how Foreman eventually picked up and didn't immediately hang up upon acknowledging that it was, indeed, him, and no, it was not an emergency.  
  
"It's two-thirty in the morning."  
  
"Just about. I thought you were still in ICU. Did Thirteen run those blood cultures?"  
  
"I left at about eleven," A deep sigh came from the other end, "'Finally got to sleep around twenty minutes ago and have to be back there at seven. If you want to know about the blood cultures, call and ask her yourself."  
  
Fair enough. "'Don't have her number." He'd turned the lamp on his nightstand on and had found a pen to start clicking.  
  
Another deep and relatively poised sigh, "Chase–,"  
  
"'You're not going to start calling me 'Rob' are you?" Up next, matching friendship bracelets.  
  
He could nearly feel Foreman's forced placidity while he simultaneously seethed with impatience. "Goodnight, Chase."  
  
  
Over the next four days, Chase received shipments for bedroom, office and living room furniture. He'd gotten something simple to assemble from Ikea, no less, for his bedroom; a black frame with an ornate base and foot board made from iron, with a matching wardrobe. He arranged some grey suede couches around a stone coffee table meant to embody minimalism and placed some of his books on it for aesthetic; he mounted a new flatscreen tv to the wall across from the longest couch and ordered cable. He set up his office in the tiny room beside his bedroom, hanging his 'An American Werewolf in London' poster in there, along with anything else he didn't have a place for just yet. His apartment actually began to look like someone lived in it, with it's little messes and quirks, while resembling nothing like his previous flat, pre-Allison.   
  
His footy posters were still rolled up in a box somewhere, the photos he may have had with his ex-wife lost with them. He hadn't had the balls the throw them out or leave them behind at their old apartment. The course of time it took for him to get settled in left him unnerved. Returning from long shifts at the hospital left him at a loss.  
  
His place, though fully furnished now, didn't feel like home. He'd never suspected it, but he briefly feared that his sensation of home had been washed out; disappearing from his life just as his wife had, failing to fully exist because he'd never really known what it was like to have family and a home he could always return to.   
  
On the afternoons when Chase popped in to have a nap before working the graveyard shift at Princeton-Plainsboro, he laid out on his couch for two hours, his mind traversing to memories he wished he could repress successfully. Although he'd paid for every single thing around him, nothing felt like it was his. He felt as if it'd all disappear at any moment. He didn't want to hold onto anything, knowing he couldn't really claim something that couldn't be kept. He'd fall asleep for twenty minutes, only ever dreaming of the same beach he'd visited just once in Sydney with his mum and baby sister. In the dream, he always left Emma with his mother, her face always blocked by the sun even though it was a cloudy day; he'd venture out into the water, getting accustomed to the current sucking him in right before he'd go under, pulled down by a sudden rip current as waves broke all around him. He was small and his lungs were filling with water, the salt burning his throat as he tried to cry out for his mother but he'd just keep getting pulled away, further and further until he couldn't see the shore from beneath the waves anymore. He'd always wake up when the sight of Emma, still a toddler, in his mother's arms, seemed so distant they resembled light spots on the pale sand.  
  
Chase would awaken out of breath, coughing, tears stinging his green eyes as if salt water had gone into them. He'd grip the couch weakly, pondering the dark undertow of his nightmare, uncaring of what it meant. His hands were always damp, as if he'd been sweating profusely though he'd wake up dry. He could never remember if the trip to the beach was something that had actually happened. He'd never had a chance to ask Rowan and never would.   
  
He begun to have the dream every time he slept. If he so much as rested his eyes while sitting in the conference room adjoining House's office, he'd wake up on the beach and look down at his hands, finding them to be small, with sand sifting through his fingers. Even with coherent knowledge of what was to come, he always wound up back in the water.  
  
He always wound up drowning.  
  
When the dreams refused to subside, Chase took to staying up by any means. It wasn't uncommon for him to have five, seven cups of coffee before six in the evening. He'd have to wait a few days to go through caffeine withdrawal to be able to sleep for a few hours every other night. He was nervous, at times, seeking distractions if it meant he didn't have to go home to a flat he couldn't familiarize himself with. He tried getting a few houseplants, though they wilted from neglect, and even hung a framed photo of him, Foreman and House at karaoke. He'd had several women stay the night, though those connections wilted too. It was apparent when someone only took an interest in him for his looks, or because they thought he had money, and he was loathe to admit that he was bothered by the fact that most bananas outlived his tenuous attempts at building a relationship with someone new.  
  
He was perfectly fine with carrying on as he was, until Cuddy called him into her office one Sunday afternoon before he was due for surgery. To his surprise, their discussion (mainly one-sided, as the Dean of Medicine didn’t allow him much of a word in) concluded in a referral to a therapist.  
  
“I… don’t need this?” Chase disputed carefully, waving the slip as if it repulsed him. "Look, I get that I've been getting a bit of sleep in during work hours. I'll try to be more alert but I really don't need this."  
  
"You do—,” Cuddy stared him dead in the eye without a word before curtly resuming her facade of seeming much busier than she was at the moment. “––If you’d like to continue under House.”  
  
"Look, if this is about the black eye-!" He wasn't off hitting his colleagues left, right and center. He'd mainly been anticipating some anger management courses, maybe even a lawsuit that would later be dropped, at the time.   
  
Not now, months later when he had enough to do.  
  
She stopped her absurd paper-shuffling and page flipping, instead choosing to roll out the formalities. "Let me correct myself, Doctor Chase. If you wish to continue under _my_ employ, I strongly suggest you get evaluated to confirm you're of sound mind. I've been informed of your... erratic... time management, recently." He was showing up exhausted, or hopped off on coffee and energy drinks. Sometimes, he had the gall to roll in disheveled, with the previous night still on him, passing for barely-sober. Her tone quickly went from 'I am _your_ _boss_ and you need to do this to keep your job' to 'I am very obviously worried'.   
  
She removed her glasses as she spoke softly, "If there's really nothing wrong, then you wouldn't mind taking tomorrow morning off and meeting with my friend."  
  
There was no denying it; he was in the shit.   
  
"Are you telling me I don't have a choice." He remarked pointedly, wondering who else knew about this.  
  
"In not so many words."  
  
His handsome face was grim.   
  
Yes, definitely in the shit.  



	2. Bitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're all mad here.

2

 

"Your insomnia is the onset of an anxiety disorder. You've been contending with separating from your wife, the stress from your work–there may be some underlying factors from past events I couldn't coerce you to disclose–but it seems to me, Doctor Chase, that you've been experiencing symptoms of anxiety and it may not be the first time."

 

Chase blinked, his bright green eyes dulling with his skepticism as he nodded once, twice, then took to looking out the window.

 

“Do you find yourself withdrawn lately? Possibly procrastinating, struggling to maintain focus? Dizziness isn’t uncommon. Or do you assume the worst outcome in a situation before it is able to unfold? Anxiety does manifest in many ways and it can be challenging to determine a proper diagnosis if you can’t recognize the symptoms or worse, choose to ignore the symptoms.”

 

He was definitely ignoring this bullshit. He maintained his attention on the trees outside, “I work under the head diagnostician at the best hospital in the state. I think I would know if I was suffering from anxiety. I’m only here because my boss’ boss wants to ensure her best doctor doesn’t have another unpredictable party under his employ, which is, technically,  _her_ employ, because then she’d have to deal with two unpredictable and thus, uncontrollable variables in the department.”  
  


Double the lawsuits, double the fun.

  
She quickly wrote a note down on the questionnaire he had had to fill out in the waiting room.  
  


“Does anyone else in your family have a history of suffering from anxiety or depression?”

He shrugged and finally allowed himself a better look at her, “‘Honestly wouldn’t know. My parents are dead. I’m not close with any other family.”

He’d finally managed to phone his little sister last month without their call ending in a screaming match. It was progress from their chosen estrangement.

The older woman scribbled something else down and did a nearly convincing impression of someone motherly and apologetic. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Cuddy had recommended (ordered, really) that he meet with this therapist friend of hers, Hannah Moth.

Dr. Moth was a licensed psychiatrist with her own private therapy practice in Montclair; telling by the various degrees hanging on the grey walls of her office, she'd graduated from Sarah Lawrence and received her PhD from Brown. The brief introduction she’d greeted him with informed him of her connection to Cuddy; she had completed her doctorate at the time she’d befriended ‘Lis’, meeting her through an online bookclub. She didn't seem to spare much tolerance for the surgeon’s sardonic and critical attitude toward the turn her consultation had taken throughout his visit; he’d been late due to his stop to get coffee and he’d tried to get on on a first-name basis, which she hadn’t been too keen about. Dr. Moth’s physical appearance closely correlated with the possibility of her discouraging any humor. Or joy. Her grey eyes were hard as flint and her nude lipstick matched her fingernails, her pantsuit the same color as her office. The high-collared, frilly blouse she wore made it seem like she could barely turn her neck and he imagined she never did. She just sat and slept with her neck all stiff like that. Her blonde hair was slicked back tight into a bun, her fringe a coiffed swirl on her forehead he was sure she took too long to perfect.

Her smile rivaled her hairdo; tight and practiced.

Part of him truly believed he was in this predicament due to his fist’s impromptu meeting with House’s face, but he couldn't be certain if this was solely a punishment. Cuddy obviously protected her beloved House at every possible turn, but he’d been able to see the concern in everyone after Allison had left the hospital. It was a long time coming; he’d been taking to many sickies for himself, preferring to sleep in on the days when the hospital could make due without him and he felt ready to drop from exhaustion. He’d had some outbursts—as if he’d been shaken awake while already being up. There was the disorientation from frequent periods of dehydration he brought onto himself with his need for caffeine as well as his greatest hit: insomnia.

An insomnia so enduringly profound that he didn’t know it’s origin; whether it was the caffeine or the almost senseless desire to never wake up on that damned beach in Sydney ever again, he couldn’t get to or stay asleep.

 “I’m going to prescribe Zoloft, to start.” Dr. Moth pulled her prescription pad out from the center drawer in her desk.  
  


“I’m not depressed,” Chase scoffed, as if offended.  
  


He was functional; he was keeping up with work when he was there, had finally moved into his apartment. His social life was thriving; he was dating. _Sort of_.

“I mean, are drugs really necessary?” He was already keeping a tiny jar of indica in one of his kitchen’s cupboards for when the sleepless nights stretched for days he couldn’t tell apart anymore. Thirteen had gifted it to him during a week in which he’d been so tightly wound up, he didn’t sleep for three days. It helped him keep his wits about him during particularly long cases while copious amounts of caffeine kept him upright.

Dr. Moth discerned his uneasy expression over the rims of her cat-eye eyeglasses, never ceasing her scribbling hand against her prescription pad. “Zoloft doesn’t just serve depression, Doctor Chase. Perhaps the best way for you to benefit from my consult would be to keep an open mind. We all become overwhelmed at times, there is nothing shameful in admitting that.”

“I’m not denying it.” The Aussie contested tersely, cooling the twitch of his brows and the deep frown that soundlessly voiced his disagreement. She looked to him almost as if anticipating something incendiary; any reaction that gave away the lack of control he was currently fumbling with in the shadow of his emotions. He felt mechanical in the way he slowly stood from the chair across from her and accepted the slip of paper she handed him.

“I do hold group sessions every Thursday evening for spouses who are experiencing the loss of their partners. You’re welcome to join us if you ever want to–,”

“Thank you for your time, Doctor Moth.”

He stalked out of her office without allowing her another opportunity to suggest any other useless thing; he was not about to come sing kumbaya with some poor saps left derelict by the deaths of their other halves––Allison wasn't dead, she’d just opted out of their marriage.   
  
He had known she would once she wrung the truth from him with her doe eyes and her deep love for high morality and ‘doing the right thing’ but it’d be a lie if he told himself he hadn’t held hopes of her eventually making her way back to him.

She had––only she’d brought the divorce papers with her. Which hadn’t been so much of a shock as it had been unpleasant.

It had broken him; not so much as a word or a call until she had made her grand appearance at his work to personally serve him the papers. Princeton-Plainsboro had gone on lockdown for what might as well have been the hundredth time because of a missing baby and he hadn’t had anywhere to run off to. The cherry on top had been the pity-sex she had given him as a goodbye; the bittersweet consolation prize for a short-lived marriage doomed from the start.

Chase didn't realize how fast and angrily he was walking down the short hall from Dr. Moth’s office to the waiting area, her perfectly written prescription a rumpled mess in his grip, not unlike the thoughts in his head. He didn't want to remember any of this shit, he didn't want to think about Allison or the day he’d met with her lawyer to finalize the divorce without her even bothering to show her face. Not when it had taken him so long to pull himself together. Nobody had had any idea how difficult it had been to pretend like Allison hadn’t ruined his entire bloody life with her indecision and refusal to commit to their marriage; she had gutted him with her abandonment. He’d done something he still doubted himself over, but was the killing of a truly vile, evil person really the deal-breaker?

Perhaps there was no justifying it; he would be damning himself if he admitted that the thought still didn’t make his stomach turn. But what of all that she had done to him? He had withstood her countless rejections; he had waited and waited and waited for her to open herself to him, heart and soul only to discover she wore knight-armor. There wasn’t supposed to have been any secrets between them; between man and wife; between family.

That had been the worst of it—losing Allison as the family he had lovingly selected.

There was so much he had never been able to say and yet even more that would forever remain unspoken. Her betrayal of his love, trust and respect had wounded him so devastatingly, that it had cost him everything he was to remain outwardly collected, always. He had rid himself of all of his unshed tears with the bottoms of scotch and gin bottles in dozens of speak-easys in the grime of New York City’s Bowery; he had poured and discarded every ounce of his grief into the nameless women he had met on every one of those nights.

It was when when he’d stopped pretending they were her that he figured he was doing better. He had slowed down and his grief had ceased snowballing. He had stopped his vicious partying, had decided to find a new place to reside; had decided that moving on didn’t have to mean engaging in just about any hedonistic distraction that would have him, if only it granted him a few cheap moments of mindless respite.

Orgasms and afterglows, coke and whiskey siphoned from someone else’s mouth; a long weekend in Vegas with a direct line to women who arrived at his hotel room in long coats. All of it had brought him a sort of radio silence; static hums that forced him to rest until it was time to resume healing people at a job that served as the glue that held him together. He had nearly fooled himself into thinking he’d managed to heal himself.  
  


The nightmares and fear of sleep made it painfully apparent that he hadn’t fixed shit.

  
Blooming Cuddy and her twisted, well-meaning need to castigate her peers to prove a point.

  
Chase nearly barreled something over in his haste to cross the receptionist’s desk, pausing when the receptionist, an older woman with ginger hair, called out worriedly. “Goodness!”

There was hazelnut latte all over her counter, the rug and his pants, the tray that had been holding some hot coffees strewn around them.

“Are you alright, Pia?” She was moving, gathering some tissues to come around the counter with. He glimpsed down at the thing he’d mown over, realizing it wasn't so much a something as it was someone, and he had enough sense to slow down to offer his hand with a swear he then hoped no one heard.

A darkly manicured hand took his and he was able to help the young woman it was attached to with about as much chivalry as he could afford after having knocked her down. He honestly hadn’t seen her and noticed he was quite sweaty, his mind having been going a thousand miles per second, but he was also covered in coffee so he wasn’t sure which was what.

She was slight and he towered over her, finding himself bewildered by her rightfully agitated look.  
  
“I’m okay, Mary.” Her voice was deep, the sound a delicate gloom as she let herself be helped up while Mary was patting her face dry as if she were dusting porcelain.

Inexplicably unable to reclaim his hand, Chase stared at her and forgot where he was. There was radio silence—in his head.

Allison, Cuddy, Dr. Moth and his own reflections of the past fell away somewhere he couldn’t place.

She was speaking again, to the receptionist, but he couldn’t hear it over the abrupt silence.

Instead, he observed her, in stunned wonderment. It was almost like her appearance didn't match her voice. Her features were fine; her brown eyes rimmed with long lashes and neatly applied liner narrowed at him, her bushy brows tamed neatly. Her high cheekbones and full lips were framed by the wisps of dark hair framing her face, some of the ends faintly tinged with teal. Her hair, that had been up in a messy bun was now dripping coffee down her nape. She pushed her Bettie Page-style bangs back with a visible huff.

Her skin was bronzy, dusky and warm like the hazelnut latte he’d managed to get on them both in his hurry to get the hell out of there. The white t-shirt beneath her leather jacket had been turned a milky brown and began to adhere to the lace of her black bra.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” He suddenly realized he was staring at her shirt—it looked pretty much ruined—he tried to stop, realizing it likely looked like what he hoped it didn’t look like, amending by finally releasing her hand and meeting her unimpressed glare. “I really didn’t mean to knock you off like that. I’m sorry about your shir—!”

“Sir, what was your hurry?” Mary interrupted snippily, bunching up the dirtied tissues. “You could’ve seriously hurt someone, not to mention, just look at the state of the carpet.”

“Right, uh,” Chase was at a disadvantage, still distracted by Pia. He was mortified. “You can bill Lisa Cuddy for the damages, she’s the one that made the appointment.”

“Of course this happens on the day I decide to stop by for a visit.” The young woman was grumbling to herself frustratedly, her expression stormy as she pulled out her mobile to check the time. “I’ve gotta get going, Mary. Sorry for the mess but I have to get to work.”

“Get going dear, don’t worry. It was nice seeing you.”

Pia swung her bookbag over her shoulder and started for the door, surprised when the man with the accent followed her out. She didn’t hold the door open for him.

“Hey, wait,” He smashed his prescription into his back pocket, telling himself he was never going to put in the request to get it filled.

“I really don’t have a minute to spare, but thanks for the caffeine baptism," She replied sarcastically, not bothering to look at him. "That should really keep me going for the next few hours.” He was keeping in step with her as she made her way up the street, the multicolored leaves of oak trees that lined the curb hanging over them.

Chase smirked at her joke despite himself, “Are you a patient of Doctor Moth’s?”

She kept walking, holding her head up high even as the coffee stained the back of her collar, "Not anymore."

He was intrigued in equal measure by her frankness and his own embarrassment, as well as the peculiar calm that had overtaken him when he heard her voice. She wasn't hiding the likely fact that she wanted him to sod off but he walked past her briskly to stop before her, appearing as apologetic as he felt while somewhat fearing that she was going to beat him up. "Well, I really am sorry about what happened back there and uh," He produced a business card from his wallet and held it out for her, "I'd like to pay for your dry cleaning, at least, you know," He was rambling and he was back to feeling sweaty, "Because I'm not a complete arsehole."

Pia stared him down, the huge coffee stain on her shirt resembling rorschach. He visibly gulped, meeting her gaze until it slowly gravitated towards the card he held between his fingers. "This jacket is vintage sheepskin. Expect a bill. Now, please stop following me." She claimed the business card swiftly and resumed walking away.

For a moment, he had to trail behind her, remembering he'd parked his car down the way, coincidentally the same way she was going.

She turned sharply to shout at him. "Oh my god, stop following me!"

"Right, sorry." Chase nodded even though she didn't see it, turning back around to make the trek back in the opposite direction, away from his car.

He'd take the scenic route, he supposed.


	3. On The Rocks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one. I don’t claim anything that isn’t Pia. Possible triggers are eating disorders & self-mutilation related. Turn back and abandon all hope.

It had been maybe three days since Chase had been in to see Dr. Moth.  
  


He'd received a missed call from her office and her receptionist had left a message regarding a follow-up appointment, but as far as he was concerned, he was never going back.   
  
His insomnia persisted as did his caffeine abuse but he figured he'd square it all away once he put in a request with House for some time off.  
  
Cuddy had already tried to corner him once to talk about the therapy session she had personally orchestrated (to better ascertain his emotional stability, he presumed) but he'd brushed her off to go back to surgery.

As far as Chase was concerned, House had never pressed charges; the incident occurred ages ago and he wasn't planning on punching the diagnostician again anytime soon. He had everything under control. He didn't sense any deeply-seated traumas rearing their ugly heads, he didn't think that the therapy had helped––in fact, he was out on some of his nicer clothes. He was feeling good in spite of running on no sleep. He hadn't given any of the topics that had come up during his meeting with Dr. Moth much consideration. He'd simply gone the long way 'round to where he'd parked his car after their session, picked up some clothes not drenched in coffee at a Brooks Brothers, drove to work, changed into his new digs in the locker room and binned his dirty clothes. He'd put in a few hours not limited to monitoring his department's most recent patient while she'd been transferred from intensive care and traded shifts with Taub once evening came. He'd gone home alone, skinned up and practiced meditating. He'd heard it was one way to help induce peace of mind and possibly sleep.Before he knew it, it was six in the morning and he was still on his couch, reading '1984'.  
  
  
Sorted?  
  
  
Chase took a testing sip of his coffee as he sat in the conference room, surrounded by Foreman, Taub and Thirteen.  
  
  
Sorted.  
  
  
He hasn't had a proper sleep in two days but the team was currently whittling away at theories regarding a patient that had come in with (possible) Hodgkins.  


"Signs point to Hodgkins, she tested negative for Lupus–," Thirteen surmised confidently, flipping through the case file open before her, her free hand jumping from the table to her lap.

Taub interjected monotonously, "We checked for swollen lymph nodes, Wilson helped confirm that this isn't cancer. Sweat test confirmed this isn't cystic fibrosis." He glanced knowingly at Thirteen, who had suggested the possibility of dormant cystic fibrosis after the discovery of potential inheritance from their patient's mother. One of her brows lifted questioningly in silent retaliation.  
  
"Where's House?" Chase asked suspiciously, pulling his best pokerface when three sets of eyes looked to him in faint surprise. It was the first time he'd spoken all morning. Nobody knew what he'd been preoccupied with all week–if you asked him to run a test, he'd go off and do it, return with the results and then wander off to surgery again.  
  
"He said something about conferring with Wilson to clear leukemia from the list." Taub informed him drily, stealing a look at the white erase-board opposite of them. All of their diagnoses' were written there, some of their educated guesses crossed out, others stemming recent developing symptoms.  
  
Foreman redirected their discussion and assumed dominance over it. "We have a yoga instructor whose lost ten pounds in three days, can't stop perspiring, is consistently dehydrated without a drip and is covered in freeform rashes. 'Insists on no major dietary changes; has remained a strict vegan for over a decade and her last trip out of the country was three years ago." He reiterated the sole details of what they knew to be written in their patient's file, his mouth a firm line as he sat up straighter. "There has to be something she isn't telling us."  
  
"Her legs are also swollen, which could or couldn't be due to her job. It could be the rise in her blood pressure." Thirteen mentioned as an afterthought. She was grateful House had stepped out lest they be subjected to any jokes about downward dog. "Any of the minor wounds we've caused with IV drips or blood drawing refuse to heal."  
  
Chase held up a copy of a scan she and Taub had run overnight. "'Could be Graves. Excessive sweating; we can't keep her in bed because she wants to go for midnight strolls; she's always tired; heart is easily stressed when she experiences any degree of nervousness."  
  
"Her thyroid isn't swollen." Taub studied his own copy of the scan.  
  
"It's misshapen." Thirteen replied with a shrug, dubiously concluding with the surgeon. "It isn't enlarged but hyperthyroidism isn't something we've really searched for yet. Why? Because she has an appetite and she's able to get to sleep? If it's her thyroid, she could be heading towards a thyroid storm."  
  
"Thus confirming Graves." The Aussie raised his coffee in mock-toast.  
  
"So, let's not rule it out. Do another scan, see if we can get a clearer look at her thyroid." Foreman instructed calmly, "If anything comes back abnormal, if there's too much tee-three, tee-four activity––we test for Graves."  
  
  
"And," Taub blinked slowly, his tone sardonic, "If her thyroid is fine?"  
  
  
"We check her heart." Chase murmured, flipping the folder in front of him shut.  
  
  
The diagnostic team unanimously dispersed; Thirteen and Taub set off to prepare their patient for another MRI as Foreman stuck to Chase.  
  
"Are we going to acknowledge the fact that every time I see you you have a cup of coffee superimposed to your hand?" The neurologist remarked casually, falling into step easily with the younger man.  
  
"Should we? Coffee's good." He took another sip for emphasis. It was lukewarm and rubbish, as he had brewed it himself, but it would keep him on his feet until lunch.  
  
"Crashing is bad." His brows arched as they rounded a corner, "Which you will, sooner than later. Let me take a guess: you haven't slept in days which is why you look like crap and the dependency you've developed towards caffeine makes you despondent, leading to lackluster participation and performance.”  
  
Chase stopped in his tracks, "'Lackluster'?" He echoed disbelievingly. "I'll have you know I've never felt more engaged in my entire life." He lied, mostly to himself. His voice was loud, drawing attention from the nurse's station, his forced offense exaggerated. He took care to stop shouting, his voice hushed as he insisted. "For the record, it's definitely Graves."  
  
"Regardless of whether it is or isn't, what's going on with you?" Foreman tried and failed to hide his concern; he knew the man before him to be cool and studied, perhaps a little sarcastic (weren't they all?) but the brusque, inconsistent mess he'd been working with for the past four weeks was unfamiliar. He was constantly up and disappearing, not unlike House, relying on coffee religiously to keep from passing out on the spot. He couldn't imagine what that was doing to his heart, to his head, how he wasn't a jittery glob every day. Outside of work, he was disinterested in the women that would approach them when they went to bars; covertly discarding their numbers once they closed the tab. He came over to Foreman's at any opportunity, almost as if he dreaded being in his own apartment.  
  
Robert Chase wasn't being his typically disaffected, charming self and it was pissing the neurologist off.  
  
"Nothing," Chase assured plainly, lowering his voice. They paused in tandem before the elevators. "'S just a bit of insomnia, and I've got to be here during the day so the coffee is keeping me up since I haven't been able to get a proper sleep." He couldn't really go on and say how fucked in the head he'd been feeling just a few days ago.  
  
They were friends, but this was work. Today was a new day, after all.  
  
"I heard Cuddy sent you to a psychiatrist outside of the Princeton-Plainsboro network."  
  
The Aussie's green eyes rolled as he smashed the call button for the elevator. Foreman swore he heard him hiss something along the lines of 'for fuck's sake'.  
  
"She wanted to teach me a lesson or whatever. I really haven't an idea as to what she was aiming to prove but she should concern herself with hospital affairs and her ankle-biter––and I don't mean House."  
  
His sneer fell away when the elevator in front of them opened up with a ding, the suggested ankle-biter aforementioned leaning on his cane phlegmatically, some files tucked beneath his arm.

He seemingly brightened upon seeing half of his diagnostic department, "Just like the Bloods and Crips, I can't seem to keep you two apart." He was amused by Foreman's obvious bemusement at his idiotic joke, that he hoped doubled as an insult. His knowing gaze drifted to Chase as he stepped off the lift, "Sorry, not sure what the equivalent for you koalas would be."  
  
  
House pushed through them both, staggering between them and halting a few feet away, quietly insisting that they follow. The doctors exchanged a cursory, forbearing look and caught up to him.  
  
  
"What are you two supposed to be doing?"  
  
"You weren't present for this morning's brief so I was going to search for you." Foreman admitted, keeping his hands linked behind his back.  
  
"Yeah well, 'beat you to it (kinda tells you you aren't doing a good job). What about you, blondie?"  
  
"Taub and Thirteen are prepping Mika for another MRI, I was going to go on a coffee run and join them." Chase gestured to the elevators behind him emphatically, coincidentally with the cup of coffee he was already drinking.  
  
"No you're not, you're on clinic duty." House affirmed, slapping the folders he'd been carrying into the surgeon's chest. "Get me a _cafe au lait_ while you're at it." He articulated the term with a stereotypically French pronunciation.  
  
"No way, I want to be there when they confirm Graves." He protested petulantly, absolutely confounded. He wasn’t about to be demoted to unofficial intern. He tried to keep the folders from spilling their contents while keeping his precious coffee cup level.  
  
"You won't be missing out on much because it isn't Graves." House retorted wryly. "You're off this case until you're focused and well-rested and not huffing coffee like a freshman cramming for finals. You've been sneaking off to surgery to nap in the utility closet."  


As far as accusations went, Chase would've been justifiably indignant had it not been a genuine truth. Instead, it was as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his face. Thoroughly embarrassed, he all but sputtered.  
  


Foreman would've laughed had he not been contemplating whether the Aussie was having a mental break or not; going days without allowing the body to recharge, sneaking in fifteen-minute power naps, chugging coffee as if his life depended on it––attending therapy for reasons undisclosed––he was beginning to think something was seriously wrong.  


"'Wondering how I found out? This ‘ankle-biter’ has eyes and ears everywhere." The Head of Diagnostics waggled his finger around, his large eyes following the movement, as if his gesturing confirmed the potentiality of his feasible claim. "Now, off to the clinic you go."

The surgeon all but went white at the mention of his previous words. “But—,”

“I’d go now if I were you; the line at that coffee place you like on Elm gets full-up around this time.” His boss’ suggestion seemed helpful but his tone remained condescending. He glimpsed at Foreman out of the corner of his eye, “You, come with me.”

He didn’t wait for Foreman to follow, as the neurologist paused to shrug at Chase before taking off, asking where they were going as he went.

“We’re going to search our yogi’s current accommodations; maybe get a feel for the Feng Shui in there.”

“Breaking into her house wasn’t enough?”

“As if she actually lives there.” He grumbled, going as fast as his flame cane could allow. As they traveled to the south wing of the hospital, they passed a familiar face in the hall. House nodded at him in curt yet quasi-friendly greeting.

Buffer waved in return, going back to collecting the cord to his waxing machine before he was set to clean up in surgical.  
  
Eyes and ears everywhere, indeed.  


* * *

  
  


Chase got through two patients before he was in dire need of a fresh cup of coffee. One woman had come in faking a chronic migraine to be able to get a letter for her work; the other case was a set of grandparents bringing their young grandson in because the lad had been left alone for a minute before swallowing a gold dollar. He'd managed it without choking, which had somewhat impressed the surgeon, but the boy seemed for all the world, perfectly blithe and otherwise unharmed. They’d seemed more concerned about the gold dollar, claiming it to be of immense value as it hadn’t been minted in over a century. He was amiable in assuring them that it would likely come out just about the same way it went in, though who would be waiting upon the boy’s every bathroom visit was beyond him.

  
While his next patient filled out intake forms in the waiting area, he snuck past reception. His cellphone buzzed from somewhere within his lab coat and he gave himself a quick pat-down as he rushed. He withdrew his phone from the inner pocket. It was a message from Thirteen.  


‘ ** _I have some Blue Dream if u want to try something other than OG kush_** ’.  
  
  
Bless her; she’d recently taken to inviting him to partake in smoke breaks with her. They’d discussed his insomnia during one of their weekly rounds of having lunch together. It didn’t happen often but he found Hadley (as he’d begun to call her) not only nonjudgmental but insightful. She never insisted that he just needed a good night’s rest or inferred that there was something else he wasn’t sharing—she didn’t care to pry into his underlying, unresolved issues.  


"Everyone has some sort of static, things that can potentially make or break you." She'd always say, "What you allow to define you is what really counts. What you choose could ultimately determine who you are and you're the one who has to live with that choice so screw what anyone else thinks."  
  
She was always prepared with pre-rolled spliffs and made suggestions for strains he suspected she hoped would help with the anxiety he wasn’t owning up to. They’d light up in one of the rooms typically reserved to observe patients overnight and then they would go eat. She was unsurprisingly nervy and always seemed to be able to remain focused regardless of what they smoked. He had yet to let Foreman in on this budding friendship but it hasn’t been very long and something about murdering someone tended to really cement a bond in a way he wasn’t sure the neurologist would be able to really understand.

Not that Thirteen spoke much about herself. Sometimes she would talk about her brother, or House or Foreman, but never in direct correlation to what they really meant to her.  
  
Chase was just about to type up a reply but didn’t get too far.  
  
  
In front of Princeton-Plainsboro’s main entrance spoke a vaguely familiar voice at the information desk; he didn't know how he had managed to pass her by. He hadn't thought he'd ever see her again, let alone hear from her, given that it had been a few days and he'd successfully made himself out to seem like a dick; yet there she stood, speaking calmly to a receptionist.  
  


"Is it possible for me to leave this with you?" She could be heard saying, resting the sealed, scarlet-tinted envelope in her hand atop the counter. "I'm not sure where this guy's office is or anything but his card listed this as his workplace–,"

"Mia?" Chase came up from behind her, taking a broad step back when she jumped at the sight of him. For a moment she'd looked like she'd seen a ghost. "Shit, sorry, I-I didn't mean to startle you."

"Pia." She corrected assuredly, holding the envelope up like a shield. Her grip around the thing lessened as she pulled the enormous, metallic-colored headphones covering her ears down, letting them hang around her neck.

The rasp of her voice was sweet, "Um, I'd decided to accept your offer––about the dry cleaning." She explained, seeming uncertain. She had looked slight upon their first meeting, beneath a well-worn leather jacket and her shirt that had hung from her frame; now she was dressed in a black turtleneck with dark pants rolled at her ankles, black leather boots on her feet.

"Right," Chase smiled for a second and mentally collected himself. "Well, I'm glad you did."

She was taken aback by his abrupt and soundless overture to shake her hand, which she took with surprising grace. The exchange was cordial and he didn't let his hand linger on her this time.

She smelled like juniper berries and something light, like flowers. “Its really nice to see you again."

"Are you always this friendly to strange women you meet at therapy?"

His brows shot upward, "I wasn't aware you were strange. I certainly didn’t identify you as a woman.” He half-joked carefully, “You more resembled a latte. Maybe a macchiato?" He was almost immediately heartened by what he suspected was a smirk playing at the corner of her lips. "I think this is standard protocol for someone feeling truly apologetic about possibly having ruined someone else’s day."

"Apology accepted." Pia replied, her dark eyes dazzling as she slipped back into her reservations, the hint of a simper disappearing altogether. She stuck the envelope she'd been holding onto out for him to take.

He stared at it for a moment before lifting his gaze to her face. "Actually," He dropped his phone back into his pocket. "Do you have some time? I'd love to get you a coffee––I was going to get one for myself. 'Maybe not douse you with it this time."

She shook her head, "I don't know–,"

"Tea?" He suggested hopefully. "I'd offer to get you a drink but it's three in the afternoon and I'm kind of on the clock." He glanced in the general direction of the hospital's cafeteria. Taking a small break close to lunch wouldn't hurt and what House didn't know wouldn't get him into any more trouble than he already was. "If that's not your style, I could get you a fruit cup."

"A fruit cup?" She echoed skeptically, that suspiciously rare smirk back on her face.

"Yeah," He stifled a chuckle. "We may have to nick it from one of our older patients, but I doubt they'd miss it. So, how about it?"

"Alright, Doctor..." She tried to find the name tag on his lab coat to no avail.

"Chase." The Aussie completed for her, smitten by her smirk blooming into a genuine smile. "Please–," Very cavalierly, he directed her the way of the cafeteria, clearing his throat as he walked past reception, meeting the eyes of the girl working there, watching him warily as Pia strolled ahead of him.

He found a somewhat covert spot in the seating area, in an alcove surrounded by windows and bright sunlight, a few hanging plants kept on the sills. He'd never known whether they were real or not; as the young woman in his company took her seat across from him, he reached out apprehensively to feel one of the leaves. Verdant and waxy, he couldn't sense cloth or silk.

Well, that was refreshing.

"What can I get for you?" He asked politely, "I'm on my fourth latte with gratuitous espresso shot but can get you anything you like."

"Tea is fine, maybe Earl Grey if they have it?"

He smiled, he felt his mask crumbling. There was something homely woven into the sound of her voice; he could feel his heart trying to punch it's way out of his chest at the subtle look of gratitude she graced him with. "I can manage that." If he could manage not to fuck this up, he'd want to figure out how to get her to smile at him again. He held his hand up as if to tell her to stay put and sped away to make the queue at the counter.

In luck with their vast tea selection and his favorite cashier on-shift, he selected something from the bakery and thought of how he was going to open up for conversation; he didn't know how to read the situation. Was she agreeing to spending some time with him because he'd agreed to foot the bill for her dry-cleaning, was she interested in conversing with a near-stranger in spite of what he had perceived as initial vexation?

When he returned, it was with two steaming paper cups and a brown bag with a muffin in it hanging from between his teeth. Pia was helpful in standing to remove the brown bag from his mouth to set on the table.

"Ah, thanks," They sat at the same time, her cup of tea placed before her neatly. "I wasn't sure of how you take it, but there are some sugar and honey packets in there."

"This is good, thank you." She had removed her backpack and set it on the window sill adjacent to them, her headphones nowhere to be seen. The envelope she'd been carrying laid curiously by her hand, before she slid it across the table to him. "Will you open this once I go? Not a moment sooner.”

"Alright." Chase agreed amiably, picking it up with subtle care. He stuck it into the pocket holding his mobile and dared to crack a joke, “‘Your dry cleaning bill was ludicrous, then?”

“You’re in for financial ruin.” She wisecracked back, her fingers twirling the tab attached to the teabag within her cup.

He chuckled and felt his fingers ripple around the heat of his own cup, his fifth coffee of the day. He had been dreading the possibility of a stagnant silence, the awkwardness hanging heavy and making him feel like he was flushed. What were they supposed to talk about?

He was unable to look away from her stare; she remained unreadable but nevertheless relaxed, as if his head wasn’t threatening to split open with all the things he couldn’t gather himself to say. He was typically great with this––making charming small talk, smoothing the prickly bits of socializing over with his boyish grin. It's what kept him on such excellent terms with the nurses. What Foreman insisted was 'flirting', Chase considered stratagem; as insincere as it seemed, it kept interpersonal relations enjoyable and the nurses were more efficient and accommodating of some of his more unreasonable requests.  


Like keeping quiet on his hiding places for his desperately needed naps. He thought it’d been going swimmingly until his boss called him out on one of his lesser known spots. He’d need to find some new ones.  
  
  
"Well, now that you have me here... why did you ask me to tea?" There was no mistaking the direct nature or tone of her inquiry. She was reticent but not bashful––there wasn't any snark or nerve in her words, just a calm curiosity. It inspired a flare of boldness in him; he wasn't sure if he had been expecting her to be anything less than forward.

He didn't hesitate, "I think you've a beautiful voice–,"

Pia outright chuckled at that, but he powered through despite the ferocious blush he knew to be coloring his visage from the neck up, "–everything is pretty fantastic, actually.” He gesticulated to the rest of her, encouraged by the mad grin brightening her face. “A-and I still feel like an arse for ruining your jacket. It seemed, for what it's worth, a cool jacket."

"It is a cool jacket," She agreed, the laughter that had bubbled out of her seeming to deflate. "Thank you for the compliment. It kind of seems better than the 'what do you do' kind of conversation."

"Oh, I want to know what you do for a living." Her appearance was polished in spite of the interesting choice in hairstyle; some wisps of teal dared him to reach out to brush them away from her wickedly dark eyes, the glimmer in them bewitching him to mentally trip over himself. The temptation was great but didn't triumph over his need to appear collected. "I want to know what you were doing at Doctor Moth's office; where you're from. I want to learn lots of things about you."

"Why? I'm really not all that interesting." She scoffed, grabbing hold of her tea.

"Well, try me. Not much outside of my work surprises me anymore.”

“Should I go in order?” She removed the plastic lid from her paper cup and blew on her tea, the steam visible still.

Chase shrugged goodnaturedly, “If you must.” He mirrored her and popped the lid off his coffee, taking a sip as she tried her drink. The welcome radio silence he’d first encountered came with her presence, he realized. It made him forget the uneasiness of his own thoughts, where he’d been, where he was.

“Okay, well, I am currently working at ‘Lotus’ on Eleventh as a bartender-,”

“I’ve been there.” He commented convivially. “It’s actually not far from where I’ve just moved into.” He could vividly recall the venue for its neon lit bar and dance floor, the bottle service girls typically dressed in black spandex and fringe the color of tinsel.

“I’m moonlighting there and finishing my degree in psychiatry, and,” Her chipped manicure was dark as she chewed on her thumb for a moment, “I paint. I freelance. I was at Doctor Moth’s because I used to be her patient. I go visit sometimes just to say hi; she wrote my recommendation to Montclair so bringing coffee and showing my face seems like another avenue to show my gratitude than–I don’t know–weekly phone calls or like, emails. I really can't keep up with that.”

"I'm sorry but can I ask why you were seeing Doctor Moth?"

She paused, the previous twirling of her tea bag's tag ceasing too.

He blinked, suddenly realizing his blunder, "Shit, you don't actually have to answer that."

"It's okay. I'm mainly impressed by you asking me to breach doctor-patient confidentiality. It's almost daring."

"I like to live life on the edge. Dare I say, the edge of a scalpel?" His delivery was dry as he shook his head, his golden hair having already been slightly disheveled becoming even more tousled, "You don't have to laugh at that; I didn’t used to joke this much before the sleep deprivation. I’m not too good at it."

"You're setting a lot of 'don'ts' for this date. I'm not sure if I can operate under such stringent regulation."

For a second, Chase looked immensely flattered by the notion. "This is a date?"

"If you want it to be." Pia knocked her cup of tea lightly against his in a toast. "Can I ask what you were doing at Hannah's?"

"Hannah?" He asked dubiously, quickly conjecturing that she was referring to their main connection. "So, you're close with Doctor Moth. Noted." He gulped a good fraction of his latte down. He almost wished there was whiskey in it. "I was actually sent to therapy by my boss' boss? You wouldn't think it possible but we all seem to enjoy involving ourselves in each other's personal lives even after clocking out."

"That must make for some exciting work gossip." Her brows quirked as she steadily drank her cooling earl grey, her eyes on his intently.

He lowered his voice conspiratorially, "I believe I might've just thrown gasoline onto the fiery, explosive mess that is Princeton-Plainsboro's rumor mill. For starters, my boss has found out that I've been taking the siestas that are sustaining me in one of the closets of our surgery department. My co-worker thinks I'm losing my mind because I attended a therapy session. Now, I've cajoled the pretty girl I met at that therapy session, whose come to drop off a mysterious envelope at reception, into a date while I'm supposed to be working. I am on fire."

“She wasn’t opposed. Should I get an extinguisher?” Pia stared at him, as if in wait, before he returned to her previous question and divulged why he had crossed paths with her on the day they'd met.   
  
"And, I was sent to Doctor Moth because I've developed some insomnia that only grows stronger due to my unruly work schedule and caffeine intake."  


Denying the gradually overwhelming anxiety he felt shadowing his everyday life was obviously incredibly healthy. He should know; he was a medical professional.  
  
  
"I don't suppose it's quite out of control yet, but I did give my boss a black eye a few months back so I sense that therapy was really some overdue punishment."

"Yikes. Why'd you punch your boss? Sometimes I want to punch my manager but as a broke college student, I kind of need my job."

The surgeon chuckled somewhat nervously and dove in, "I didn't want to deal with people asking how I was doing after separating from my ex-wife? In retrospect, that one act probably raised more flags than I'd initially warranted but it did work, so," He shrugged mutedly. "I guess, punch people more often? I'm not going to lie, sometimes my boss kind of deserves it. He's brilliant, but he's a bit of a bastard."

"That must've been difficult; maybe you were just dealing with it however you could manage at the time." The young woman's gaze followed a pair of doctors over Chase's shoulder as they sped by, both of them glancing in their direction. "You seem kinda young to be a divorcee."

"I'll take that as a compliment. To continue with the stark and cringing honesty I'm apparently so forthcoming with," Sunlight hit his eyes in just the right way that portrayed how verdant they were, and feeling a knot he hadn't noticed before in his stomach, he focused on the abstract portrait hung on the wall behind Pia's head.

Vulnerability wasn't really one of his strengths and this definitely shouldn't be first date fodder but here he was, spilling his guts for a laugh and what he was almost shamed to admit was kind of cathartic. Something about the woman sat across from him reminded him of Thirteen, in demeanor; as if she wasn't soundlessly judging him, but assessing his words before she could carefully choose her own.

"Getting divorced was kind of shit for a while. I'd imagined marriage wasn't going to be easy but it'd been more complicated than I'd imagined and I've performed brain surgery. It's a bit like buying one of those puzzles––the ones that come with like a thousand pieces––only to realize that after it's all said and done, the puzzle gets put together and there's just this one fucked up piece that won't fit. Except it was more than one piece and I spent all this time just trying to smash it all in to form this picture that didn't seem right no matter how I spun it."

As if to match his impulsivity in embracing unsettling subjects, Pia brushed the hair gracing her cheeks behind her ears and leaned in closer. "I'm sorry if this is the wrong thing to ask, but did you ever stop and think 'I might've married the wrong person'? That isn't criticism, I've just never been married yet always thought that if it ever did happen, I'd feel like I was marrying my best friend? That's probably stupid. And naive. But it's what I've always thought."

"It isn't stupid." Chase ensured quietly. "There were moments when I did think I made the wrong choice–,"  
  
Shit, he'd never told anyone that.

"–but, it was still my choice. I like to think I knew from the very beginning that it would fail but I was hopeful that it wouldn't." He was still unable to look at her, that bloody knot in his stomach leadening. "I've actually never said any of this out loud. Should I write you a cheque? You might be doing a better job than Doctor Moth."

"Cash only." Pia japed lightheartedly. That alone gave him the courage to meet her eyes again.

"Is any of this a dealbreaker?" He was sweltering within his clothes. "I think this might've been too heavy for a first date."

"I think we'll be alright." Her playful smile was small as she rolled the black sleeves of her turtleneck up her arms. "We kind of met at therapy, I'm not assuming we're extremely well-adjusted at this point. Not that I'm complaining."

The Aussie took the chance to glimpse at her arms, the sudden appearance of skin previously unseen a concept of interest. He wasn't disappointed; there were tattoos adorning the inside of her forearms. There was a well-detailed snake upon peonies winding about her left arm in haphazard pattern, the black ink bold and it's scales etched finely and juniper sprigs peering out from just beneath the sleeve of the right. Near her elbow, there were a pair of hands linked in a pinky promise and at her wrists, there were scars. Upon lingering scrutiny, there were plenty of them; faint and some layered over each other, others hidden within dark ink, between the line work.

There was a silence that encompassed them unlike the one they'd shared when they'd first sat down. It was the kind of silence that understood, and as Chase reached forward to possibly touch her left arm, where the scars were abundant, he jolted back at the sound of the last person he'd wanted to see approaching him from behind.

"Well this is an upgrade from the closet on the seventh floor." House's flame cane tapped on the linoleum poignantly, piercing whatever it was that had passed over Pia and Chase.   
  
The surgeon recoiled, sighing cooly as he frowned tritely, turning to look at the older man over his shoulder. "Hous–!"

"Shut up," The diagnostician dropped the folder containing the results of a fresh MRI as well as the other easter eggs he'd found on the table. There was a shopping bag hanging from his arm. "It isn't Graves. Break's over." He gave a cursory glance to the woman quietly observing them and gave a mildly appraising hum. It was a temperate reaction; his indifference to her otherwise was evident in how swiftly his attention was back on his employee, "That means 'let's go'."

Chase slowly turned back to Pia, "Sorry, seems I'm off." He resealed his latte and began gathering the pages spilling out of the folder between them as he stood.

"No worries, I should probably get going too." She was much quicker than he was, needing only to grab her bag off the window sill and sling it on. "I'll see you around."

She gave House a wide berth as she made her way around them.  
  
  


* * *

 

Chase made sure to give the diagnostician the silent treatment during their short journey to their patient's room. Which was just as fine by House; he was busy chowing down on the banana-nut muffin he'd fished off the table he'd found his surgeon at.   
  
They entered their patient's room where Thirteen was keeping a close eye on her vitals, her focus uninterrupted despite their arrival.

"How are you today, Mika?" The surgeon perused the file in his hand with subtle speed.   
  
They'd checked her heart.

"Doing good today, Doctor Chase." The petite redhead sitting up in her bed replied sweetly, her blankets fisted between her fingers, gathered at her stomach. She was surrounded by countless balloons and flowers, gift baskets with teddy bears and snacks on the tables opposite of her. "I've had plenty of my fans come visit me, so it's been really encouraging––,"

He didn't miss Thirteen's eyes quickly stealing a glance at him before they were back on the screen glowing before her face.

"Blah blah blah," House blathered curtly, unceremoniously emptying out the contents of his shopping bag at the foot of her bed. "Let's get to the good stuff. You–," He pointed at his patient almost accusingly, "–aren't a natural red head–," He held up a used box of red hair dye and shook it.

Mika appeared rightfully indignant, "Excuse me, where did you get that? Have you been in my apartment?"

The diagnostician disregarded her and continued, "–this isn't even the best part. What your million followers don't know is you're balding, maybe from the chemicals in this box of lies or due to the fact that you haven't been eating." The other boxes on the bed were torn open, revealing several diet pill containers and supplements. There was even a tangle of clip-in hair extensions. "You're suffering from severe malnutrition due to years of anorexia. Your rapid weight loss while in our care isn't just from you losing muscle mass," He outstretched his arm to Thirteen, who quietly passed one of Mika's gift baskets to him.

He sifted through the fluffy teddy bears smiling up at him innocently, the chocolates and 'get well soon' cards'; tearing through decorative tissue paper to the bottom of the basket, scraping the wicker as he produced boxes of diet pills and laxatives. "The laxatives are making it harder for you to retain fluids so we can't keep you hydrated."

Chase did well in remaining solemn as his boss propped his cane to lean on the footboard and briefly met the surgeon's somber expression without stopping his grim and faintly sarcastic diagnosis, " _An MRI of your heart_ revealed Ventricular Tachycardia which is just a fancy term for 'your heart is beating too fast' especially under any perceived stress that could lead to sudden cardiac arrest or worse, failure. That's just more fancy talk for 'sudden death'. Your wounds aren't healing because your body is struggling to derive the vitamins needed to keep it healthy without a source of nutrients and those rashes? They're likely an allergic reaction to–," He turned one of the boxes over in his hand so he could read the label, "–'Fat Burner 5000'. 'Also explains how gross and sweaty you get despite lack of exertion." His brows shot up to his hairline. "Your 'fans' aren't helping, they're harming. Your brand as a 'Vegan Yogi' is killing you."

Mika's jaw had dropped, her hands wringing her blankets out of clear discomfort and what the doctors could sense was frustration. "H-how did you find out?"

"Your midnight visits to the loo to flush away food have led to your toilet being unclogged six times since you were admitted. Apparently you haven't just been clogging your toilet, but five out of the twelve in this wing when you aren't hiding the goods."

She was tearing up, the blankets threatening to rip in her clutches. "If anyone finds out..." Her voice was so low, Chase and Thirteen could barely discern it. "Are you going to tell?"

"Well, no. You may be deceiving your sponsors and followers and yourself but once you're cleared for surgery, _Doctor Chase_ will be installing an implantable cardioverter defibrillator; it'll help prevent the possibility of that 'sudden death' thing I just mentioned. Since we can't trust you to feed yourself, we'll put you on a temporary parenteral nutrition regimen, make you healthy enough to let you go, but policy states we have to pass you on for psychiatric evaluation." He recollected his flame cane and used it to brace himself up as he backtracked toward the exit, "That may lead to a rehab referral. Doctor Hadley will be...facilitating that process. If you have any questions, just ask her _but definitely don't ask me_."

Without farewell and with his typical lack of basic empathy, House left his mortified patient to half of his team, coincidentally, the more sympathetic half. Chase did his best to make reassuring chit chat, answering Mika's questions regarding her impending procedure, as well as VT while Thirteen screened the rest of her gift baskets for more enabling paraphernalia. Between her frantic and consistent inquiry on whether to expect weight gain from the total parenteral nutrition and more visits from admirers, Mika fell asleep long enough for both doctors to slip away.  
  
By evening, post-surgery, everything had calmed to a near standstill.  
  
House had a newer and thus, more interesting, puzzle to solve in a patient that was perspiring blood. Taub and Foreman were in charge of intake and information gathering, Thirteen was due to run sweat and blood tests. She was digging through her locker with Chase beside her, standing in front of his own locker as he emptied it out. She was tugging on her lab coat a sleeve at a time. He was dressed to go home; he hadn't had to apply for time off––House imposed a leave of absence subsequent to Mika's surgery.  
  


"What will you do?"  
  


The Aussie's brows knit together in worry, "'M not sure. 'Probably try and get a grip on things."  


It was ten o'clock. He had the whole night ahead of him.  


The brunette closed her locker securely, her countenance skimming him knowingly from the corner of her eye. It was a half-second, but he swore she was going to say something remotely intrusive before she soundlessly decided against it. Instead, she put a small glass jar in his hand. "Good catch with the heart suggestion. Try the 'Blue Dream'."

He glanced at the jar and then at her back, as she made her way out of the cramped locker room. "Thank you."

She was just out the door, but simpered at him fleetingly, "Have a good night."

Chase listened for the door's click as it drifted shut behind her, pocketing the jar in his denim jacket. He gave it a few minutes before departing; his walk to the parking lot went without disruption from any of his colleagues, his drive home was peaceful, with the silence louder than anything moving outside of his car. He was relieved to find parking on his street wasn't scarce tonight.

He hummed on his walk up to his flat; he dropped everything on his floor and flopped down onto his couch.

It wasn't long until he was back to skinning up, grinding some of the 'Blue Dream' Hadley had generously provided him with. He smoked slow, curls of white and grey evanescing aloft as he continued to read '1984'.  


He thought about Pia.  
  


He had no way of contacting her.  


"At least she knows where I work." He said to no one, the stillness of his living room replying with emptiness and the faint shuffling of his neighbors on the floor above him. He shifted on his couch, laying his book on his stomach as he grasped for his bag on the floor blindly. Finding it, he undid the zip and barely sat up to dig around, finding the red envelope Pia had given him.  
  


He'd almost forgotten about it.  
  


Chase tapped his joint against the edge of the tea tin he was using as an ashtray, whatever fingers he had free opening the envelope from its corners, lifting it at the edges until the flap came away. He removed a 'Thank You' card decorated in palm trees from it's sleeve and opened it up, the invoice from her cleaners falling onto his lap.  
  


His eyes remained on the card, on the generic lettering thanking him, his mouth forming a grin as he fell back with a happy chuckle, Pia's number scrawled in cursive underneath, her name in large letters.  


' ** _Thanks. Call me anytime_**.'


	4. Highball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while but this is still a WIP. Any comments welcome and if you're still with me, thank you! This isn't an abandoned project so much as it is a "let's go a step at a time". 
> 
> Baby steps and deep breaths.
> 
> Would anybody be interested in a playlist to accompany this series?

4.  
  
The wind was chilled, filling her lungs too quickly as she tried to keep her breath even, the cold biting her skin wherever it could. She had bolted across the hospital's cafeteria and reception area so fast that her first real breath of air came the moment she was out of the entrance, her entire being feeling as if she had just crashed into open water. The sliding doors sealed behind her and she exhaled, all of the nervous energy she had been holding in leaving her. She took three deep breaths; in through her nose and out in small puffs of white from between her lips until she was ready to move again––this time, her thoughts clearer. She didn't know which way she was going but she didn't overthink it as she started walking.  
  
The appearance of who she presumed to be Chase’s boss hadn’t so much as scared her as it had broken the spell the doctor had cast on her. For a moment he had looked as if he was going to brush her skin, his hand nearing her arm, and she had held her breath in anticipation. Something about his eyes had made her stop and drop her guard, but just as quickly as it had happened, it was gone. The wall she surrounded herself with had bricked itself up again.The vulnerability she'd felt had dissipated along with the welcome silence they'd invited between them. He'd told her so much of who he was during their brief meeting that she was wondering what even led someone to divulge so much of themselves to a near stranger. He had seemed so afraid, something behind his gaze guarded; yet took it in stride, a fleeting smile touching his mouth every few minutes as he rambled on about things that so obviously broke his heart. She would think about that smile for a long time; the way his eyes, lushly green and shining, looked upon her as if she were art. So many times during their conversation, he had seemed as if he wanted to reach out and touch her, but he kept to his collected restraint as if it were armor he wore.  
  
Chase admired, but from the short distance between them. As if he could only embolden himself so much as to tell her all of things he knew he shouldn't say but drew the line somewhere far behind them, his want to become tactile behind the same line.He was outwardly calm, like deceptively still water, while underneath there was a river flowing wild, the current so strong that how he managed to stay intact was a curious feat in of itself.  
  
A shiver went through Pia's body as she caught a cab departing from Princeton-Plainsboro's emergency lobby. The cold nipped at her arms and she pulled the sleeves of her sweater down. She rubbed them to try and warm up and slid into the backseat of the car, glancing at the hospital from her window as the cab pulled off.  
  
Pia was late to her first part-time job, having received an email about her being replaced for the afternoon. She moved onto her second part-time, arriving early to her bartending shift.  
  
Lotus on 11th street laid between an asian fusion restaurant and a yoga studio. They served brunch upon after opening at ten in the morning, lunch in the afternoons and dinner in the evenings until the kitchens closed at ten at night. The venue was multitiered; there was a lofted section overlooking the glass dance floor, private seating and a VIP section hidden in the wings. Chandeliers with candles held within crystal baubles hung from the beams of the vaulted ceilings. The glass dance floor had moss and what appeared to be an entire pond with lotus flowers floating gently beneath it’s thick glass, vines ensnaring the spiral staircases that led to the higher levels of the club. There was seating surrounding the enormous glass centerpiece, in the style of rustic wooden tables and cushioned benches. Giant leafy plants and florets of exotic flowers decorated pillars and the DJ booth, illuminating everything in pink and yellow neon.  
  
During dining hours, a playlist set the mood in ambient music, the neon lights were kept low, and servers worked quickly to attend the tables in their sections. The manager of Lotus, Gabriela, was the favored niece of the venue’s Portuguese owners; she had only been working for her uncles for two years, only spending half a year subtly making work for her team of bartenders a constant nightmare with scheduling snafus and difficult demands. She traipsed around the venue on a daily basis in sky-high Laboutin heels, her long dark-brown hair constantly slicked up into a high ponytail.  
  
At times, Pia silently hoped she’d fall over her ridiculously tall heels, but Gabriela never fell.  
  
On days like this, when her schedule ran too closely together or she was pressed for time, Pia sat at the bar and studied before her shift. This time, she only had time for one book, a leather moleskin that she reserved for notes and a few printed pages she’d copied from the books homed within Montclair University’s massive library. She kept her cellphone at arm's length.  
It's presence was evident while not remaining completely distracting, the screen glowing alive with notifications every few minutes. Not that it mattered; she glanced over at it every few sentences she perused from her notes, glaring at it when it tauntingly lit up without a message from Chase. There was a text from her room mate, a reminder alerting her of her upcoming shift at eight sharp and a date for an appointment with her dentist.  
  
Still no message or call. What if he'd lost the envelope? What if he hadn't? What if he had no intention of speaking to her again? Why would he treat her to tea, then?  
  
Was there a two-day rule she was supposed to be observing?  
  
"Pia,"  
  
She quickly looked up from her productive worrying at her manager, "Gabby, hey."  
  
Gabriela stared at her from her place by the cash register, the pink neon lights at Lotus going on as the overhead lights hanging from the vaulted ceiling dimmed. "Do you mind starting early tonight?"  
  
"Sure?" Starting two hours earlier than she had planned wasn't much of a difference.  
  
"I saw you came in and have just been hanging around. Is it a problem?" It almost sounded like a challenge and less like a request.  
  
Feeling at a loss for a second, Pia blinked and kept her tone neutral. "Not really–,"  
  
"Great, so please get off your phone and get back here." Gabby's accent purred as her pearly teeth gleamed, her smile plastic and picture-perfect. She didn't wait for a response as she slammed the register shut and disappeared through the swinging door that led to the kitchens. "Thank you!"  
  
Pia’s brows rose to her hairline as she exhaled curtly, in exasperation, blowing her bangs about before they fell back over her forehead. “Okay…” She stuck her papers and books back into her bag and came around to the back of the bar, putting her belongings on one of the empty shelves by her feet. She slung drinks for servers filling orders at their tables and greeted her coworker when he showed up a half-hour past eight, happy to see him.  
  
Max had been working at Lotus for over four years and he’d helped her get the job after they’d met at his tattooist’s shop in Jersey City nearly a year ago. Max was over six feet tall with an athletic build, with skin slightly fairer than hers and a constellation of random beauty marks that adorned his face. Along with the assortment of tattoos completely covering his arms, he had an inked noose dangling morbidly from his left sideburn. He kept his hair sheared close to his head and dyed silver, the colors changing every few months though his eyebrows remained thick and dark. The silver earring he wore on his right ear always reminded Pia of how they’d initially crossed paths, as it had been his reason for being at that tattoo shop the day they'd met. As the bar was becoming busier, they didn't have time to chat, but they’d embraced quickly before he slid his frayed jean jacket off, stuffing it inside of his motorcycle helmet and immediately getting to prepping drinks. She’d worked on her own before; the huge bar meant for three bartenders booming with noise and bodies after dusk, but the traffic was easier to handle with someone else on-shift. Gabriela stopped by to check up on the influx of customers that had begun to trickle in, the amount of people making the huge space suddenly feel like a walk-in closet, the feeling claustrophobic. The bouncers that monitored the door at night arrived along with girls with hourglass figures, dressed in silver dresses and jumpsuits that resembled a second skin. The girls hung by the bar chatting, providing bottle service to patrons that purchased tables to stand around at.  
  
  
The kitchen stopped accepting food orders at ten on the dot; Max assisted the remaining bussers in changing out the dining tables for the smaller chrome-topped tables and stools Lotus reserved for the after hour. The bartenders’ tip jar was pathetic for the first few hours of Gabriela breathing down Pia's neck; the night starting bleakly with two clean-ups of broken glasses and a woman drunkenly hitting on Max. Gabriela left for the night, at last, just past midnight and the entire atmosphere seemed to shift. The camaraderie surrounding the bar lightened and the tip jar improved; following hours of Pia straining her voice over the music, she’d been treated to three shots of gin by a customer that had leaned in too closely to hand her a credit card. She ran the transaction and gave her friendly customer a receipt to sign.  
  
  
She turned to Max and tried not to yell in his ear, “I’m going to the bathroom, hold down the fort!”  
  
He gave her a thumbs-up and kept swaying his shoulders to the techno music canceling out all of the other noise, shaking a tumbler in one hand as he uncapped a beer with the other.  
  
  
Grabbing her phone as she made her way towards the employee bathroom tucked away in the empty kitchens, she glanced down at the time.  
  
1:23AM.  
  
Still no word from Chase. She got to the bathroom and bolted the door. She placed her cellphone on the sink and popped the sole window in the room a crack, welcoming in the night air. The music causing the venue’s walls to shake could still mutedly be heard. Pia pulled off her turtleneck, adjusting the silky grey camisole she had been wearing underneath, the wired cups fitted to her chest snugly. She rinsed her hands under a cold tap, running her hands over her nape and practiced taking three deep breaths. She let the water run for a few more minutes, regaining her bearing, studying her reflection in the bronze-encased mirror hung above the sink. Décolletage pronounced with bone and smooth skin, the inked juniper branches with their berries snaring around her right arm from the shoulder down caught the light of the lamp above the mirror. She turned her arm slightly, inspecting the peonies accompanying the juniper branches, the design finely detailed. She pulled her hair tie out of her ponytail, letting her shoulder-length hair fall around her face. She shut the tap swiftly and ran her cold hands over her scars, ignoring their shaking. She tied her sweater around her hips and gave herself one last look, wiping mascara from beneath her eyes before leaving.  
  
  
Pia emerged out of the bathroom, past the dark kitchens to house music so loud she felt it reverberating in her bones, rattling her on her high-heeled feet as she slunk past her coworker and began to close out tabs. Max nudged her and put a tall shot glass in her hand, the smell of the blue liquid sloshing inside fruity and lethal. They exchanged slightly mischievous looks, toasting messily and spilling what she thought might be vodka on their shoes as they shot them back, the song thundering around them merging into something else as the liquor burned it's way down her throat, heating her insides. She immediately cringed and choked out a laugh lost to the sound of a hip-hop song with bass so heavy, the bottles arranged decoratively behind them vibrated.  
  
It wasn't vodka. "What is this?!" She shouted, barely able to hear herself over the music. She wiped at her mouth and shifted her weight, immediately acknowledging that whatever she'd just drank, it was the final nail in her coffin.  
  
  
Max glowed hot-pink under the neon luminescence snaked around the bar and running up the glossy walls, his broad shoulders rippling beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his plain, white t-shirt. "Something for the spirit." He winked at her, his eyelashes thick around his dark eyes, casting a shadow that hardened the hollows of his cheeks. He glimpsed at her while rinsing out glasses, the cut of his jaw perking as he grinned at her quickly, the gesture not unlike one of a child's at a toy store.  
  
  
At closing, it was four in the morning.  
  
  
The liquor she'd consumed had her mind in a haze; a gauzy, shiny veneer she couldn't wink away or make dissipate with any of the glasses of water she kept drinking. The lights were back on and the bouncers had helped in clearing out any remaining stragglers that had missed the announcement for last call being half an hour ago.  
  
The house DJ was making her way out with her last box of equipment, her hands full. "Have a good night, guys."  
  
"Good morning!" Max cheerily farewelled, bracing his elbows on the bar with a cheeky smile.  
  
Pia followed her until the doors, holding one open for her before locking them behind her exit. Her short jaunt back to the other side of the bar included her heel slipping on some wet spot on the sleek, hardwood floor, her equilibrium lost but regained quickly after her coworker laughed loudly at her.  
  
"Are you alright!?"  
  
Reaching the bar, she rolled her eyes, "Oh, so now you're concerned." She declared facetiously, watching him count out the money they'd collected in cash fluently. "How have you been doing this for so long?"  
  
"Ah, back in France it was more difficult." He shrugged indifferently, slipping the stack of cash into a tiny manila folder he then tucked beneath the til of the register. "I worked for a lot of underground clubs so I had to move about every few nights–a lot of these places were actually fronts for drug operations so police were always popping up. This is probably the more stable thing I've done in a long while. Modeling and photography are fun but they make for better hobbies."  
  
"Do you ever miss being in France?" She asked dreamily, resting her weight against the bar. The sight of his face blurred from her liquid high. The farthest she'd ever traveled was Niagara Falls with her parents as a kid. "Living in Paris?"  
  
"At times, I miss a lot of things about it. Like the food and my mother–and my mother's food, of course–certain friends and places, but a lot of what I feel nostalgic for is only memory, now." He pointed to his temple. "My English would've probably never have gotten as better as it is; living in Brooklyn was helpful when I first got to America and I got to go to the school I had wanted for the time. A lot of good has come out of one chance; I don't sense any regret. Some of my childhood friends had already been situated here and I've made a lot of cool, new friends. Kind people. Like you."  
  
“That’s sweet,” Pia pushed herself off the counter to balance on the heels of her feet, “I’m still not sleeping with you.”  
  
Max sighed and threw his head back with a forced chuckle. He stood to his full height and shook his head, “You always do this, Pia; you take what may be a nice moment and make it cheap.” He riposted tiredly, the night’s toll evident on him, suddenly. “You are cheating yourself out of good experiences by souring the moment without savoring it. We are friends, I like your jokes but you should allow yourself some joy. I meant for a genuine compliment.”  
  
“I appreciate your compliment.” She said apologetically, crossing her arms over her chest. “Thank you.”  
  
“See? That was not so terrible. Now let’s close up, I want to go home.” With that, he grabbed his jacket and helmet as well as her backpack. He held it out for her over the counter and she took it with a quiet word of thanks.  
  
The pair shut the lights off together and ensured all of the exits were appropriately locked before heading out.  
  
Max’s motorcycle was parked three storefronts down. Pia walked with him up until they reached the all-black supersport ducati, it’s matte finish wet from rain they’d missed earlier in the night.  
  
“Will you be alright to ride? The streets are probably slippery.” She put her backpack on the ground to pull her turtleneck on.  
  
“I’ve lived in Leeds; if you can ride there, you can ride anywhere––'bloody rain never stops. I’ve become a pro.” He perched on the seat confidently for a second and offered his helmet to her.  
  
She eyed it warily, but made sure to keep her expression blasé, scooping her bag from between her boots to slip onto her back. She knew it was likely an awful idea, but she’d accepted rides from him before, no matter how much they’d had to drink. She always loved the speed; how it felt akin to soaring, the steady and the nearly silent roar of the engine between her thighs as she gripped onto him as if gripping onto life itself. He was already turning his key at the top of his seat, pressing a button and lifting the kickstand.  
  
  
Pia trusted Max; Max trusted Pia.  
  
  
“We best get going, then.” She tugged the helmet on over her hair, securing it beneath her chin.  
  
Max grinned like a madman, waiting for her to climb onto the seat behind him, her arms coiling around him tentatively. Her hold strengthened when he abruptly took off, mimicking a wolf as he howled down the street as if howling at the moon, in spite of the dawning sun.  
  


* * *

  
  
  
“Robbie?”  
  
  
  
The sand was grit between his fingers, wisps of golden hair tinged by pale sunlight momentarily obscuring his vision as he spun around fast, as if he’d been caught doing something he hadn’t ought to.  
  
His mother was rushing towards him, Emma nowhere to be seen. He felt small, his field of vision a lower perspective than he knew, and upon looking at his shorts and bare feet, he knew he was a boy again. He gaze lifted, trying to anticipate his mother’s arms, but she was still running and wasn’t any nearer than she had been to him.  
  
He could hear the ocean, knew it to be behind him, but felt this unspeakable fear he couldn’t comprehend; he felt overshadowed by it, as the sun dimmed behind a thick of clouds that rumbled with umbrage, a peal of thunder clashing against roaring waves that made him deaf.  
  
His mother was still coming towards him without moving, and as his glare dropped back to the little lengths of his hands, the grit was crimson. His hands were drenched in the wet rust he realized was blood, the coppery scent mingled with rot as his stomach clenched from the dry-heave that racked him.  
  
  
“Robbie!?”  
  
  
It was his mother’s voice, still, but he found himself involuntarily turning to face the sea. “Mum?”  
  
  
The waves were crashing violently, thrashing without their usual ebb and flow, almost as if the vastness of the ocean was contained within a glass box. As far as she was from him, he immediately recognized her, standing unassumingly at the center of this billowing beast, her smile clever as a wave built behind her, gaping darkly. A monster without teeth.  
  
  
“Allison––!”  
  
  
Arms finally curled around him from behind so tightly, he nearly threw up as the wind was knocked from him.  
  
  
Chase awoke in an icy sweat, completely startled by what he thought was the sensation of drowning. But it was nausea, as he made himself sit up on his couch.  
  
The room was bright, which meant it was morning.  
  
Glancing at the rolex on his wrist that he only wore for work, he realized, that as Foreman had predicted, he’d finally crashed. It had only been for three accursed hours, but as he slowly dropped back down onto the sueded cushions, slicking his hair back as he descended, he was certain that this wasn’t the end of whatever the hell he’d just seen behind his eyelids. It had been months since he’d dreamt of her, and he hadn’t expected to see her again so suddenly, even if she’d only been a projection of his sadistic imagination, that recently felt like it was treacherously playing against him.  
  
He was struggling to regain his breath, noting that his heartbeat was accelerating and panic was seizing him by the throat as his fingers clutched damp suede, his trousers, anything that could help him make the room stop abating, darkness eating at his vision as he tried to understand what was happening. The nausea hit him thrice as hard, making him dry-heave just as he had in his dream. This was it. He was fucking dying.  
  
Who would find his body? Foreman? Then the neurologist would really know that he’d lost his fucking mind before having what felt like a heart attack.  
  
  
Yet, deep down, he knew better.  
  
  
Admittedly, he wasn't in the best shape of his life, going from working out three times a week to once every two weeks if he could bear it, lord knew he loathed running, but he was too young to go into cardiac arrest. He didn’t feel irregular, piercing pain or the telltale signs of pressure or tightness in his limbs or chest; but for the life of him, he couldn’t draw a breath that didn’t feel labored, each sparse inhale promising to be his last. It wasn’t and every last breath promised this wasn’t over; he felt as if his heart was within a phantom clutch and he spent the next twenty minutes stuck in this seemingly never-ending loop of terror, threatening asphyxiation and profuse sweat, his thoughts running away from him devilishly. He couldn't summon a single thought that didn't relate to the inexplicable and terrifying condition afflicting him; his panic doubled upon him recalling that sweating and difficulty breathing could also mean he was having a heart attack.  
  
The more rational part of him, the part that didn't care to entertain melodramatics, was a version of a younger Robert Chase at seventeen; responsible and headily unaccepting of the things he could and couldn't control, not in the way of rebellion but of impassivity as he had had to distinguish his battles and choose the ones he was able to win with little contest or consequence.  
  
At fourteen, he had fathomed that it was time to put childish things away when he saw his father less and had to be at home for Emma more, as his mother, Janice, had taken to the drink zealously. Exacerbated by constant fighting and her husband convincing her to attend therapy else he tighten his pursestrings, her condition worsened each time he went away. Chase had never really known if her addiction had been incited by Rowan's presence or his months-long absences; wine at dinner became the bourbon they had stored especially for guests; being absolutely pissed in the morning escalated to scenes not excluding the breaking of antique mirrors and the fine china when she'd ran out of vodka before noon. Attempts at restoring Janice's sobriety and perhaps her equilibrium of mind had failed miserably whenever she had a stint at a rehabilitation center in Auckland; her children typically were left with a caretaker that never lasted longer than a few weeks, in correlation with her varied success and subsequent failure. Rowan would remain at his 'medical conferences' until she would be sent home.  
  
By fifteen, Chase had been doing what his parents couldn't teach him; he had applied himself to his studies, as he had never been keen to scholarly pursuits though he'd been blessed naturally clever, and when Rowan further lessened his appearances, he'd learned to cook and clean up after himself as well as his sister. They had had to downsize and move houses. The luxurious house Chase had loved finding hiding places in had seemingly outgrown the alcoholic wife Rowan successfully hid from society. There would be no more maids or chefs or drivers as they were moved to a suburb of middle-class families and less prestigious educational institutions. The adjustment had jarred his mother and sister most, while Chase had found a particular freedom in no longer alienating himself from his peers of highly-esteemed pedigrees that rivaled his.  
  
In the midst of all this, his father had done what he knew best and remained estranged; seldom calling unless it was to inquire after him and Emma, though those welfare calls ceased along with his visits; only an occurrence when it was his son who contacted him first with requests for more money or on a birthday. Chase preferred it to the picture his family had painted when complete; Janice outdid herself with her antics and accusations along with her drunken, violent dramatics whenever his asshole father raised a hand against her or went on another one of his diatribes––about his money or his and his sister's legitimacy––though it always squared down to Rowan's own failings and certain infidelity. It had always ended in apologies and an increase in income to preserve his children's lifestyle as he kept his distance from the uglier remnants of a past life.  
  
After having conditioned himself to keep any emotional reactions from affecting his mien and bearing, neither of his parents could blame a bitter expression he'd made as the cause for a curt slap or insult, and Chase had grown to perfect the torrent of calm borne of the thought that in a few short years, he wouldn't have to stay. No more tolerating the burden of caring for his ill mother while suffering the shortcomings of his financially generous yet deadbeat father. The one thing he had subjected himself to without complaint was his looking after his baby sister; their parents were a farce but it hadn't meant that a faultless eleven year-old girl had to suffer along with them. Chase had never permitted Emma to receive the brunt of it; Janice had been difficult as she had been unpredictable due to her lack of sobriety, at times verbally attacking his sister when able to find her alone, but he had never allowed a hand to befall her. Janice's belligerent and alcohol-inspired episodes had always been met with a locked door, as coaxing her into her bedroom until she would calm down was all he had been able to do to protect everyone without having to involve the authorities. He hadn't had too many fears, then, but had been astute enough to understand that without his mother, his and Emma's fate would grow complicated beyond the means of an emotionally underdeveloped teenage boy with little personal connection to their otherwise absentee father. It certainly wouldn't have helped to have had his other activities outed, as at the time, friends from school had introduced him to hash and a cute girl in the year above him named Ceilidh. Chase had always been curiously welcoming of distractions, but no distraction had ever managed to take him away from what awaited him at home. Having people to look out for that relied on him heavily had anchored him in a way that matured a boy far too quickly.  
  
At sixteen, he had been the one to hide the half-empty bottles of whatever his mother had managed to get her hands on, clearing the empty ones away come time Janice awoke from her drunken slumber. That had typically been at any time before he had to be at school or just before he had to pick Emma up from her school in a different neighborhood. It had proven dangerous to get rid of the alcohol completely as withdrawal only made Janice sick and desperate. He had been efficient in developing a daily routine he had rarely deviated from; in the mornings, he had ensured Janice bathed and had a toast before he had to be at school; he'd bring Emma's breakfast to her bedroom and ironed her uniform as she ate, leaving her to dress as he sped through her homework. Then, he'd do a fast comb of the one-story house to make sure he had done well in choosing the hiding places for his mother's precious bottles before walking his sister to school and rushing to his own. He had been preparing to take exams at the end of his third term, the marks he would be receiving the first step in facilitating his acceptance into university.  
  
In the afternoons, Chase expected that his mother would have found her cache of booze, as addicts were ingenious and she had been no different; otherwise she would've scavenged for any money she could find about the house to purchase a few new bottles of cheap bourbon to hold her over. Able to manage the income they had access to with little deterrent, he would do the shopping and make it to Emma afterward, depending on whichever activity he had previously enrolled her in. Convincing Rowan that the extracurriculars were a service his baby sister would someday thank them for had been enough incentive. It had kept her out of the house for the while that he needed to gather his wits and clean up his mother’s messes. After tea, Chase would sit with Emma and assist her with her homework and push her to have a bath; then he would tuck her into bed, only to have to repeat the process with their mother. On good days, she had done well in just about blacking out for a better portion of the day, her belligerence replaced by muddled ennui. He would sneak off on the good days, right after he had been sure of his sister being soundly asleep. On the bad days, Emma had to keep in her bedroom with the door locked, instructed to open only if a special knock they had created would sound on the other side of safety. Those were really bad nights and Chase would often find bruises and scratches on him in the morning after a fitful sleep. In spite of all of this, he had never complained or voiced his disdain for the people that had been supposed to love and protect him and his sister best; he had taken every slight, tirade and abuse on the chin and learned to comfort himself with the promise that emotional and psychological independence would breed resiliency.  
  
When news of his father having a second family reached him and his mother, every decent memory that had helped him hope that the man he had once believed his father to be had died. Trips he couldn't remember; lavish parties with the entirety of the Chase family; his father speaking softly to him while in his private library, as he had shared the tomes on medicine he proudly kept––it all ceased to matter. Janice had nearly drank herself to death, poisoned twice and ending up in the hospital several times before doctors notified Rowan of his wife’s stomach cancer. Treatment had led to liver failure.  
  
At seventeen, his mother had passed in the same manner she had lived the last years of her life, quietly tormented by a matter of circumstances she had never considered divulging to her son. Emma had been devastated; selectively misremembering several events as well as the memory of their mother, protecting herself from the truths her older brother had lived with and relinquished upon her death. Chase had never felt that it would serve to live with the rancor of having had to care for an ailing mother that would have never recuperated. With his completion of secondary school, Emma had been sent to a boarding school in Vienna after it had become apparent that Rowan had no intention of adopting his daughter into his other family. The dolor that had colored his view of his parents faded with the disassociation he had placed between them the moment he was off on his own. He had initially been saddened to learn later on that his sister had never been able to do the same.  
  
For the first time, Chase sought the peace he had been devoid of for a better majority of his formative years. He’d always been so steady in galvanizing his gut feelings into action. It hadn’t taken a second thought for him to prioritize breaking free; he had swallowed his foolish pride and requested his father fund his aspiration to higher education. It had been the least that was owed to him after all that he had endured.  
  
He had proceeded taking a sabbatical to seek that confounded, elusive peace; traveling to places he had never been. For months he would forever be grateful for, he found self-reflection and forgiveness in various churches in England and on London's streets; pausing at a seminary dedicated to Saint Anthony where he had considered joining the Roman Catholic church.  
  
God and science had been subjects that had challenged him most, in that he had had a beloved belief in both; the latter having acquired triumph over his destiny after reflecting over his own defects, sorting himself as unfit to spiritually heal the morally weak. He himself lived with a morally discounted perspective; he had never been devout in the idea of doing the right thing regardless of what it would cost him personally, often choosing what would aid him and fail others. Something in him had felt as if it had been left to waste and although he had never found the source of the rot in his soul, he had faith that he would do better in putting his intellect to use. A part of him had almost thought that at it's core, he had had a desire to surpass his father in some way, as he had left the seminary and questioned all manners of conditions that could oppose an otherwise healthy man's mortality, registering at the University of Sydney.  
  
  
Intuiting became instinct and he had exceeded in execution what he hadn't excelled at within a classroom.  
  
  
That same instinct seemed to come back to him, then, as he laid on his carpet between his couch and coffee table, in stunned wonderment of what had struck him so devastatingly.  
  
Chase returned to himself, to his quietened thoughts, to his present.  
  
He sat up with languor, taking another glimpse at his wristwatch. Twenty minutes of his life had managed to stretch themselves into illusionary hours. A bloody lifetime of anxiety.  
  
"Well, let's not do that again." He remarked breathlessly, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes as he rubbed them, feeling them come away with tears. He willed himself to his feet, using the coffee table for balance. The amount of sweat he had produced was good enough reason to shower the minute he regained the strength in his legs.  
  
He cleansed himself in ice water; fighting the tremors that at first, had made his muscles tense up, relaxing beneath the frigid spray that numbed his body and his thoughts. He dressed warmly afterward; finding an old pair of cargo pants the color of olives at the back of his closet, that he hadn't worn in ages. He pulled on a grey t-shirt and a wooly black jumper over that, tucking his feet into timeworn doc martens he hadn't used since his time at university. It was obvious that nostalgia was inspiring him to return to things that would cause him to remember a different time and a different feeling, and he found comfort in remembering that they weren't moments he associated with whatever it was that had tinged his day with dread since he had woken up.  
  
He left his apartment for a walk in his neighborhood; the sun was out and the weather fair, the sky clear and the breeze brisk. He sat at a cafe a street away with his copy of '1984', sitting outside of the small shop, with a latte the barista had meticulously sketched a leaf over coconut foam in. He didn’t need all the frills but he’d be damned in saying he hadn’t been captivated by the work that had gone into coffee number one. He took a sip of his eight dollar drink and decided that he would put a cap on his caffeine intake today.  
  
House putting him on an official and unpaid leave of absence for an undisclosed amount of time meant he would have to sort out his insomnia; he wanted to give himself the ultimatum of two weeks at the most, as he would only be paid if he applied sick-leave for one week and some vacation time for the other. Locating a pen in one of the pockets of his pants, he turned to a blank page at the end of his book and drew a line.  
  
"Sorry, Orwell," He mumbled, focused in etching a tree not unlike the kind he and his cohorts established at the beginning of all of their cases. Each disease had a cause and a majority of the effects were treatable upon being identified properly, so he figured he had to find a way to source his insomnia. Caffeine, obviously, was a factor he wrote in in capital letters; nightmares were a second cause he added. He was honest with himself in including the more difficult motives he didn't want to acknowledge; like stress and anxiety, as he supposed those two beasties had been the reason for the panic he had awoken in. As he finished his brainstorming, he surmised that he could make some attempts at acquiring devices to assist his attempts at regulating his sleep.  
  
Anything that would help him avoid having to get to the root of everything that was causing his current predicament, because the truth was, Chase couldn’t say where his troubles began. He only hoped he could determine their end.  
  
He snapped his book shut and tucked it beneath his arm, re-entering the cafe to purchase a ham and swiss croissant. He ate slowly as he made the trek to a home goods store a few minutes away. The air would do him good; the combined travel time of getting there and walking back to his place would count as cardio, and the coffee in his hand was still warm which was encouraging. The store wasn't busy due to it being one in the afternoon on a Thursday, so Chase shopped at a leisurely pace. He was able to find everything he was looking for, and after watching the cashier helping him with his purchase awkwardly attempt to wrap his recent buy, he insisted he would carry it home without a bag.  
  
The Aussie was surprised to find Foreman waiting outside of his apartment building upon his return. He was dressed as if he'd come directly from the hospital, and if the time was any indication, he was likely due back within the hour.  
  
"Hey," He greeted brightly, his astonishment obvious on his face. "You didn't ring beforehand, is everything alright?"  
  
"I heard House placed you on leave?" The older man approached him, peeling off from his recline against the building's bricked wall. He adjusted the collar of his peacoat as he came closer. He glanced down at the box Chase was holding from a handle fastened out of tape. "Is that a white noise machine?"  
  
He disregarded the implied skepticism interlaced with the neurologist's voice. "It is, actually."  
  
Foreman seemed to do a double-take, "You went to 'Bed, Bath and Beyond' and picked up a white noise machine? Like the kind that will play the sounds of the ocean and woodland creatures?" He shook his head, "You're alright with getting benched? There wasn't a counterargument or a request to repeal his decision. It's unlike you."  
  
The ocean. Waves. Thunder. Chase recollected his nightmare vividly.  
  
"Well fuck me dead, I didn't contemplate that." It would probably exacerbate his condition, or the trigger that kept inducing his repetitive nightmare. "I tossed the receipt." He lifted the box for a beat, the information he gleaned from the product's description suggesting that there were over three hundred sound combinations. "No, yeah, there are more than enough settings for a 'customizable experience of serenity'."  
  
"Chase," The call of his name was piqued, his friend barely able to conceal his annoyance with his subtle attempts at evading his prying.  
  
"Right, the leave of absence––it's fine," His arm slowly dropped back to his side. "I was going to ask to use my vacation days anyhow. I'm kind of worn out. Do you want to come up and have a coffee?"  
  
"I'll pass on the coffee," The neurologist replied deliberately, already following his friend into the building. "I can't stay for long."  
  
"I've some whiskey if that suits." He proffered politely, like a good host, as their ascension up to his flat proceeded with a tense silence that begged all of the questions he knew Foreman wanted to and would ask him once they were inside.  
  
"Why does it smell like pot in here?" The response he received was a curious shrug.  
  
The neurologist didn't even wait for Chase to set his new gadget down and procure the glasses for their drink before he was on him; trailing him from the small bar in his living room to the kitchen's doorway.  
  
  
"House mentioned that he found you with some girl instead of working yesterday? I mean, your personal life is your business, but taking off like that for a social call certainly isn't helping my claim in convincing our colleagues that you aren't completely out of your mind."  
  
  
Here we go.  
  
  
Chase wondered what kind of wording their employer had used in gossiping with his staff, "I can't be sure of what you've heard, but, technically I was on my break." He rinsed out the nicer crystal he saved for whenever he was expecting amiable company, pouring each of them a generous double of the fourteen year-old whiskey he stored under the kitchen sink.  
  
Foreman crossed the threshold to accept the whiskey, stopping across the counter that separated them as he furthered his rant, "I understand if you don't want to speak to me about whatever it is you have going on and prefer discussing your problems with a therapist; the stigma surrounding the idea of engaging in therapy is a disservice to who it helps and how much it can help, but I'm worried. The way you've been acting––at work and outside of it––i–it isn't who I've known you to be. The Robert Chase I know is brilliant and a womanizing jackass––," The grin that daubed his face disappeared fast but was enough to make the younger man chuckle, and he took that as a sign that his words were helping more than harming.  
  
"But he's good at his job because he cares about what he does. You're an exceptional doctor, Chase." He stared the surgeon in the eye and set his drink down for a moment, "So the disconnect between that doctor and whoever you are right now, I can't fathom a change that distinct or unnerving." Flustered for a moment, his hands laid out flat against the stone of the island's countertop. "Whatever it is, I hope you let your friends help you through it."  
  
Chase's smile was contrite, "As soon as I figure out what's wrong, I'll let you know. In the meantime, 'think we can round back to the bit where you called me 'exceptional'?"  
  
"You're an ass."  
  
"I am," He agreed unapologetically, holding his glass up.  
  
Foreman's glass clinked against his and they polished their drinks off simultaneously, though the younger man cringed his way through the burn of the liquor.  
  
"I'm not much for drinking, though." He exhaled ruefully, reaching for the bottle a second time. "Another?"  
  
"Sure. I'll be working until we hear back from House; I figure I'll need it."  
  
"Where's he gone now?" Chase asked officiously, serving the neurologist another double while allowing his glass to remain dry. "If I were to take a wild guess, the only person with any idea is Wilson and he isn't talking."  
  
"I tried to ask but he left before I could get a word out of him. We have a seventeen year-old soccer player whose sweating his weight in blood so he's going through transfusions every hour and an old woman whose heart stopped in the middle of donating blood who just upped and walked out of the Red Cross. It's a mess; Cuddy hasn't been in, either. I wouldn't be surprised if they're together."  
  
"Princeton-Plainsboro is on fire and the lovebirds are off, hand in hand into the sunset? How remarkably predictable."  
  
Foreman checked his watch covertly, pulling his sleeve back down over his wrist and picking up his drink. "Speaking of 'lovebirds', who was the girl you met with yesterday?"  
  
"We met at therapy."  
  
"This will end well." His sarcasm was as tepid as the drink in his hand, which he swiftly polished off. He stepped around the island and left the crystal glass in the sink. "Alright, I better get going. Seriously, don't hesitate to contact me if–,"  
  
"–If I'm going off the deep end?" Chase suggested remotely, his smirk full of cheek.  
  
"Chase–," The older man chastised, pausing in the kitchen's doorway as he exited.  
  
"Yes, I will call. God, when did you become my 'Wilson'?" The surgeon joined him, cordially walking him up to the door.  
  
  
Ever since Allison left.  
  
  
"Ever since it became obvious that when left to your own devices, chaos reigns over your life."  
  
"Your concern and policing is appreciated." He complimented drolly, bowing in mock-gratitude.  
  
Foreman sighed forbearingly, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as he pulled the front door open. "It better be. You're becoming a full-time job."  
  
He glanced at the younger man cannily, as if the look alone demanded he behave, trailing the railing fencing the stairwell in the hall; until he was off, without looking back, bounding down the stairs two steps at a time.  
  
Chase shut the door and retrieved his cellphone from his pocket, wondering about Pia. They had met at therapy; not that she had been actively attending sessions with Doctor Moth. Meeting had been yet another messy coincidence, which he continued to make a mess of. He'd added her number to his contacts the night before but hadn't called. It had been well past a respectable window, he'd thought.  
  
Would it end well?  
  
He couldn't really gather what 'it' was, or if it was off to a good start. He'd more or less revealed the more pitiable recent events occurring in his life. Were women even into that?  
  
"Sod it," He swore under his breath.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  
  
The room was spinning.  
  
  
The stark white ceiling above her was a bland carousel, threatening to make the contents of her stomach make an unwelcome reemergence. She tried to sit up, her head groggy, before she dropped back down again in defeat. The white comforter and blankets billowed around her, the sheets soft on the skin of her legs and arms as she floundered weakly.  
  
  
"'Morning, Sunshine." Max's shock of silver hair poked through the French doors of his bedroom.  
  
  
"You need curtains." Pia insisted tiredly, smothering a pillow over her face. The cool dark was a relief against the onslaught of off-white and sunlight.  
  
  
"You need to eat something. You threw up a bit after the ride, so I had you stay the night. Or morning. Whichever you prefer."  
  
  
"Well, that's embarrassing." She admitted pathetically, finally bringing herself to sit, yanking the pillow off her head and tossing it to the floor. "Sorry, Max–,"  
  
  
"No worries." He assured as he walked in, pushing the doors open with the tray he held. It wasn't the first time she'd woken up in his bed after a long night, though he was usually beside her, still asleep or equally sick. "Your pants are in the wash." He was dressed in black sweatpants, the drawstrings loose as he made his way over to her. He came to sit at her side, balancing the tray on his folded leg, "I've some tea, toast, some berries and aspirin. Pick your poison."  
  
She nicked a slice of toast off the stack and took a healthy bite. It was soaked in melted butter. She promptly put it back on the plate with an obvious grimace.  
  
"Wrong choice?" His laugh rung in her ears, making her wither back down into the tangle of his sheets.  
  
"Please don't make fun of me right now, I don't have the physical strength to beat you." Pia half-joked, watching him in a way she hoped seemed mildly threatening.  
  
Instead, she found herself involuntarily trying to count all of his tattoos; they spanned from shoulder to shoulder and went down his arms, the designs a mixture of realism and traditional, sprinkled with impeccable artwork. Arms and hands that resembled 'The Creation of Adam' wrapped around his left arm, prominent among clouds and cherubs; there was a switchblade, bloody roses that looked real, barbed wire. She spotted a small but intricate portrait of Notre Dame Cathedral and an anchor, some script in French she couldn't read, a hanging man and a smoking woman. There were other things lost on his skin; asterisks and a candy heart, secrets snuck in wherever they fit. His back was surprisingly bare, but strong, and as he set the tray down on an end table close to them to stand, she stared at how his body rippled to life. He looked fantastic and knew it, as he briefly outstretched his arms above his head and glanced down to meet her stare.  
  
  
"I definitely don't want a beating. You might end up throwing up on me. Again." He smiled at her, patting her head, "I'll make soup. Someone phoned you, by the way."  
  
  
"Thanks."  
  
  
"Try and rest." He left the room quietly, pulling the doors closed just enough so they remained slightly ajar.  
  
Pia glanced around, her thoughts still muzzy.  
  
Like the rest of his homey loft, Max's bedroom was all white. He kept a variety of potted plants about; some of the leafier, overgrown ones hanging from the corners of the room by the large, industrial-style windows where they were met by the sun.  
  
A simple wooden chair carried her bag and sweater, the floor mirror behind it facing the end of the bed. She wriggled her feet; her reflection moved with her. She thrashed the layers of blankets off of her legs, setting her feet on the icy floor one foot after the other. She stretched like a cat and willed herself up, pulling the strap of her camisole back onto her shoulder. She walked around the bed to the bathroom on the other side of the spacious room.   
  
  
Pia took her time washing her face with cool water, placing her cold hands on the back of her neck. She picked her hair up, winding it into a loose topknot. Her nausea seemed to settle as she walked back into the bedroom, pausing just outside of the bathroom, by the rack where he hung his clothes. She grabbed a pair of dark joggers covered in zippers and tugged them on over her briefs.  
  
  
Fetching her phone from her backpack, she had a missed call from a number she didn't recognize. There was a voicemail. Her heart leapt up into her throat; her nausea returned tenderly as she chose to listen to it. She held the phone up to her ear with a shaky hand as she heard an accented voice on the other end.  
  
_'Hey, Pia, this is Doctor Robert Chase?'_  
  
She almost thought she heard him pull his own phone back to mutter something like 'Christ, she knows I'm a doctor', before coming back.  
  
_'We had a tea yesterday at Princeton-Plainsboro. I got your bill? I-I'm still good to pay it, of course, but saw you'd also left your number asking to call, so–,'_ He chuckled anxiously, _'I'm calling. This isn't one of those straightaway things, but if you aren't busy later, would you like to meet up?'_  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and suggestions welcome as this is my first time really posting anything, anywhere.  
> This series is meant to be a quintuplet-shot (?) as it seems more digestible and thus simpler to complete; these were just some thoughts rattling around in my head after binging too much House and contemplating my own issues with anxiety in my youth.


End file.
